Aeronautical Radio, Incorporated (ARINC) 629 is a data bus architecture that was designed for use on aircraft and that can operate with multiple transmitting and receiving devices on a common medium. ARINC 629 is typically used to facilitate communication in an integrated onboard network and computing infrastructure installed on aircraft such as Boeing® models 777 or 777X. There are typically multiple ARINC 629 data buses in an airplane implementation. Temporary access to data transmitted using the ARINC 629 protocol is often obtained by installing test equipment that records the data in the ARINC 629 protocol prior to a flight and then post-processing such data once the aircraft has landed. The addition of temporary or permanent equipment for interfacing to ARINC 629 buses requires time for installation and troubleshooting, which is time that the aircraft cannot be used for flights, and therefore increases costs and reduces the revenue that the aircraft can generate.
Typically receiving equipment on an ARINC 629 bus is programmed to receive a specific subset of information controlled by the device configuration. Receiving equipment may sample that data at lower than line rates and may not sample data in all flight phases. Therefore, existing avionics equipment does not provide access to all the data provided on all the buses.
Because it is costly and time consuming to install and configure non-avionics equipment on an aircraft in order to obtain data transmitted in the ARINC 629 protocol (“ARINC 629 data”), and because many devices in an aircraft communicate using this protocol, operators and those who maintain such aircraft typically do not have access to all the data generated by devices installed in the aircraft. This lack of complete data can hinder root cause analysis and effective design improvement solutions to in-service issues or future component enhancements.